This article is describing the transvaginal ultrasound device. For those not in the know, Virginia is poised to change its law to require that women who seek an abortion have to have an ultrasound. That procedure is performed with a wand-type device. Now, whether you think abortion is right or wrong, or this procedure is right or wrong, or this situation is right or wrong, that's your opinion and not what I'm addressing today.

My issue is with the article being labeled as NSFW, especially with the article going out of it's way to not only include the acronym is the URL and title, but ending the first paragraph with "WARNING: Extremely NSFW image to follow." By the time I got to that, I thought I was going to be attacked by strobe-flashing, full-screen, HD/3D images of brutality, rape, murder, and kitten torture or something. Scrolling down, what I got was an image of the device (something like a wand-type hand blender, only smaller) being inserted into a training mannequin of a female lower torso (navel to upper thigh). Obviously, yes, this showed a plastic vulvar opening.

Is this really THAT big a deal? It's VERY OBVIOUSLY a hunk of plastic for training people to use this device. Are we really so frightened and creeped out at even the tiniest idea of genitalia that we can't show a medical training model without proclaiming a warning in triplicate (once even calling it "extremely" so)? I'm not sure which bothers me more, honestly, the fact that they went to such lengths to protect the frail and sensitive public form this picture or that the frail and sensitive public is such a bunch of whiny children that the site feels they'll get deluged with all-caps, badly spelled threat e-mails if they don't.

Seriously, humans. Toughen up a little. It's NOT taboo. It's just skin and organs.

Yeah, I'd have the exact same reaction you did to that sort of wording. I do hate the way that female bits and anything that might remotely relate to them are always so particularly 'taboo' as well...grrrr

To answer your title question, "NSFW or Not?", the answer is Not. Sorry, but even plastic representations of genitals aren't work-safe, unless of course you are actually in those medical professions where working with them is part of your job.

What do people think that they're going to see when they read an article like that? I can imagine about 3 scenarios in which one should be reading an article about transvaginal ultrasounds at work, and none of them involve the necessity of the NSFW label. If you feel you have to label an article like this NSFW, then maybe people shouldn't be reading those articles at work. Maybe they should be, ya know, doing actual work, and reading the news on their own time.

Damn it, when I see a NSFW, I want it to be freaking NSFW! I mean, seriously, false advertising like this can seriously overexcite my twisted expectations and then BAM, or rather *poof*. Nothing. Bastards.